


Do You Ever Feel Like You Just Shouldn't Be Here?

by Silverskye13



Series: The Stairs to the Core (Grillster Stories) [4]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Bad Days, Frustration, Guilt, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Misery, Passive Suicidal Ideation, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-31 20:57:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8593423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silverskye13/pseuds/Silverskye13
Summary: Gaster had a bad day, and now he's at Grillby's, venting about it like a dumbass. He's going to regret this later. He's probably just overreacting. He probably shouldn't say anything. Grillby probably has his own problems to worry about. Wondering if some tired and pathetic skeleton is going to harm himself shouldn't be another problem to add to his friend's list.But Gaster's being stupid and he keeps talking, and maybe... maybe he's also feeling just a little bit better.





	

“Do you ever feel like you just shouldn’t be here?”

Grillby shifted beside Gaster - a curious surge in heat that radiated quiet concern - and immediately the skeleton regretted ever opening his mouth. He… shouldn’t be talking. He knew better than to talk this late at night.

It was one of _those_ nights, one of the ones where Gaster was just… too tired. One where he regretted every second that he hadn’t just gone home to pass out on his couch, blanketed in his own self-loathing. But he’d talked too much earlier too, venting to Grillby as he walked home about how terrible his work day had been. About how much work he had to do and how he had no time to do it. About how he felt like this latest project would never be finished. About how he had no idea what he was doing. What… what was the point? Why bother? All of his ideas were insane, nothing was ever going to turn out right and - and… Grillby had hushed him with a quiet promise to sooth the evening. To run his warm hands over Gaster’s troubled bones and sooth the ache that was building in his soul.

Gaster knew he shouldn’t come over the minute Grillby suggested it. He was just feeling _that_ kind of dark. He’d scrambled and fallen into that deep pit again. He should have gone home and wallowed in it for a few hours.

Instead he was sitting on Grillby’s couch, nursing a cup of tea in his hands while some movie played like radio static in the background of Gaster’s hearing, just quiet enough to lull someone to sleep if their thoughts stopped stirring long enough. But Gaster’s mind was running. Well… shambling really. Stumbling around in loathsome circles, worrying over how much of a waste of time every piece of his pathetic existence was. And in the quiet of the night when his tired mind let his inhibitions drop, he finally blathered out one of the questions he’d been chewing on.

_Do you ever feel like you just… shouldn’t be here?_

“Care to explain?” Grillby asked, his quiet voice scarcely louder than the show running on the television. He didn’t sound… worried. But then again, Grillby was a bit unreadable sometimes. Gaster should stop talking. He should dismiss the topic. Laugh it off somehow. He was just… tired… and overreacting…

In the morning, he wouldn’t mean a word of what he was thinking, right?

Or maybe if not in the morning, surely a day from now?

Or a week?

Or maybe two?

Either way, this conversation was going to come back to make him cringe sometime later. It would creep back and make him feel guilty, like a thousand other of these conversations did. He would feel miserable and self-loathing all over again about how stupid he was, how he constantly overreacted, how surely he was just seeking some kind of attention or affection. How surely his problems were nothing and he was being a brat to complain.

But… he was talking anyway before he could stop himself. Failing to heed his own drowning advice and it clawed at the back of his soul and breathed regret against his skull.

“You know,” Gaster hummed, his voice mumbling quiet and warped against the mug pressed to his teeth, “Just… do you ever wish you could kind of… hmm.”

Gaster shrugged his shoulders in some weird fashion, twitched his fingers, and averted the lights of his eyes as if somehow the combined motions could elaborate on whatever words were refusing to wince their way out of his nonexistent throat. Grillby nodded, filling in the gaps for himself. He was good at that. He was a bartender. He was supposed to be good at that. Reading people. Answering the questions they weren’t asking. Watching the words their souls were fidgeting over and reading them as clearly as if they’d been written across his bar counter.

Of course, there was no bar counter now. Only slightly off-kilter couch cushions and churning, nauseating, bouncing light from the television set that jerked its way across the darkened room. It was softened a bit by the soft color and glow of Grillby’s flame - a little less cold and blaring than the epileptic fluorescence that would be darting about Gaster’s own house if he were there now.

“Looking for an escape?” Grillby asked quietly, and Gaster shrugged.

“Maybe, I dunno.”

There was a tenseness building up in the skeleton’s body, a feeling very much like he were trying to keep himself from shivering. It made his ribcage feel tight, his breathing strange and unnatural. His teeth ached from the unconscious clench in his jaw.

He was nervous.

 _You shouldn’t be talking about this_.

“I just…” Gaster continued regardless, refusing to make eye contact with the friend that watched him so attentively, comfortingly, “Sometimes… I guess I just kind of wish I could… stop existing for a few seconds.”

Gaster winced a laugh past clenched teeth, “I dunno. I wouldn’t be opposed to going to sleep for the next ten years of my life. Wake up sometime when everything is solved.”

“You’ll get through this Gaster,” Grillby hummed with a reassuring flicker, “You always do.”

“Yeah… right...”

Gaster focused on finding something interesting in his tea mug… and silently kicking himself for talking as much as he had. Maybe if he cracked a tooth clenching his teeth like this he’d learn his lesson and keep his mouth shut.

“Are you alright Gaster?”

“Fine.”

He’d probably answered too quickly.

Gaster amended a little more slowly, “Stuff’s just... getting to me a bit I guess.”

He could feel Grillby watching him, and it was a force of will on Gaster’s part to keep ignoring it. To pretend he wasn’t as bothered as he actually felt by everything. Trying to pretend he wasn’t exhausted down to the soul, in ways sleep wouldn’t really help. Unless perhaps that sleep lasted _much longer_ than a normal monster’s should.

“You’ll make it through this,” Grillby said again, this time a bit more forcefully.

Gaster wanted to laugh - right, of _course_ he would. And he’d look back and remember how stupid he was being about all this right now and… and… he’d feel like an even bigger idiot then than he felt now and… maybe next time he’d learn his lesson and stop overreacting.

“You know I really like having you around,” Grillby spoke again, his voice still filled with that subtle touch of urgency, “You’re the greatest monster I know.”

This time Gaster _did_ laugh, a dry, humorless and pathetic sound that rattled in his ribcage like a gag, “You don’t know very many monsters do you?”

There was something sharp and forceful in Grillby’s voice this time, something like annoyance but a bit more caring than that. Something just south of urgency and closer to persistent.

“I know every monster in Snowdin,” he said smoothly, “Several in Waterfall, Hotlands, and the Capital.”

Gaster crumpled a little smaller in his seat. Small enough that he fit easily in Grillby’s arms when the elemental leaned over to wrap him in a hug. A hug he very much felt like he didn’t deserve, felt ridiculous for receiving right now. He was being pathetic, and childish, and he was tired and… he shouldn’t have come over tonight. All he’d succeeded in doing was making Grillby worry.

But… he let the elemental hug him anyway. Let Grillby rest his fiery head on Gaster’s jagged shoulder, let the larger monster encompass him in a soft and growing warmth that melted his bones and took a bit of the clustered tension out of his ribcage. It left him like a sigh and bubbled a hiccup through his chest. Gaster didn’t let it escape though. He was the sort of tired and emotional that would turn something like that into crying, and he didn’t need _that_ to come back and snag his soul later.

But wrapped up in that embrace, in that persisting moment, Gaster had never been more grateful that Grillby existed in his entire life. Even though he didn’t deserve it. Even though Grillby was so kind, and thoughtful, and Gaster was just an emotional piece of shit right now who didn’t even deserve someone’s sideways glance. Gods above. He was glad Grillby existed. He was glad Grillby was his friend. That the elemental knew him. Saw how silly and ugly he was being and returned the wretchedness with care.

“Thanks for keeping me company tonight,” Grillby said, and Gaster let out another one of those pathetic, emotionless little laughs.

“You’re kidding, right?”

Grillby just sighed and settled a little closer against the skeleton’s body, as if he could cover Gaster’s very _soul_ in his flickering warmth.

“It’ll be okay someday Gaster,” Grillby murmured, “You don’t have to believe me now. But someday you’ll be proud of the things you’re doing now. You’re making revolutionary things. You’re improving lives. You’re doing amazingly.”

Gaster sighed, and with it he shuddered, his voice estranged and cracking, “No I’m not. I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing.”

“Nobody does.”

“I’m going to mess up, and it’s going to hurt people.”

“Even if it happens, it won’t be nearly as bad as you’ll think it is.”

“I’m going to fall down before any of this gets done. This is impossible.”

“Everything you’ve accomplished has been impossible, and you’ve done it anyway.”

Gaster shook his head, “Grillby you’re not listening to me. I _can’t_ do this. I can’t do anything right. I keep messing up everything in the labs I - I should have everything finished by now! I should have _answers_ by now. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong… I can’t figure anything out. I’m going to disappoint so many people.”

The skeleton let out another one of those deadened laughs, his hopeless feelings mounting, “Why do I even _try_ Grillby? Why do I even get up in the morning? All of this is just pointless anyway. It’s just going to be one more problem after another. Even if I _do_ fix this, it’s just going to happen again and again and…”

Gaster kept babbling. Slowly growing more and more emotional, as if somehow a floodgate had opened. He kept talking faster, tripping over his words and giving himself _one more thing_ to be exasperated about. But he kept going.

I’m such a failure, he said, all I ever do is screw everything up. I wasted my time while I had it and now everything is due and I don’t know how to get it all finished in time. I feel like all I ever do is waste my time. All I ever manage is making things worse. I don’t know why I thought I could do any of this. Even right now I’m procrastinating. I should be home, rereading my notes and figuring out what I did wrong so I can fix it tomorrow. This should be simple. Why isn’t this _simple?_ Everyone else is walking around so flawlessly! H-how can they have everything in their lives so together? Is there something wrong with me? What the hell am _I in particular_ doing wrong? This isn’t supposed to be like this, isn’t it? I thought I was supposed to have everything together by now I… I don’t know what to do. I don’t _ever_ know what to do. Why do I even try? Why do I _try?_ I just… I _so wish_ I could just go to sleep and week up someday where I finally fixed everything. Why can’t now be _then?_ Why can’t I just skip this _mess?_ I want to skip this. I don’t want to feel like this. I don’t… I don’t want to be here.

I don’t feel like I should be here.

Gaster talked and talked until he ran out of things to say. It was a miracle he made it through the entire affair without crying, but he _was_ shaking. He was nervous and tense and distraught and exhausted and he was already regretting saying anything, let alone saying _everything_. Just one more thing to add to the list of things he’d managed to get wrong today. This week. This month. Just one more thing wrong in a lifetime smudged with things he’d done wrong. Just one more overreaction to add to the list of emotional oil spills he’d be cleaning up for the next eight years.

And Grillby sat quietly and listened like the good friend that he was, lacking judgement or annoyance, emanating only care. Filling the void left behind in Gaster’s speech with comforting warmth and an embrace that had no intention of letting go until the skeleton could hold himself together on his own.

They fell asleep like that, Gaster’s miserable sulking slowly easing into emotionless feelings of tired. When Gaster awoke in the morning, he did regret talking. He did feel like he’d reacted too impulsively. He still felt like he’d made mistakes, and like he kept getting things wrong.

But he also felt loved, something his emotions had been a bit too jaded to feel the night before and… he was grateful.

He was exceedingly grateful for the patient soul that always sat and listened and let him spill. The persistent soul that let Gaster fall apart, and held him until he could put his pieces back together again.

Being friends with Grillby… well… he guessed that was something he’d managed to do right.

**Author's Note:**

> _I don't care if it hurts,_   
>  _I want to have control,_   
>  _I want a perfect body,_   
>  _I want a perfect soul,_   
>  _I want you to notice,_   
>  _When I'm not around,_   
>  _You're so fucking special,_   
>  _I wish I was special._
> 
>  
> 
> __  
> _But I'm a creep, I'm a weirdo,_  
>  _What the hell am I doing here?_  
>  _I don't belong here._
> 
>  
> 
> _  
> _Creep ~ Radiohead_  
>  _
> 
> * * *
> 
> __  
> _It's probably pretty easy to tell I just wrote this because I'm in a bad mood._  
>  I dunno man. This week has been rough.  
> But there's probably a thousand people who have it rougher, and I'm just being a little bitch and overreacting.  
> I probably shouldn't have taken the time to write this, let alone post this.
> 
>  
> 
> _  
> _But you guys are the Grillby to my Gaster, so unfortunately you get to listen while I hide behind my computer screen and vent._  
>  _
> 
>  
> 
> _  
> _I might delete this later. We'll see._  
>  _


End file.
